There\u2019s a modern-day script for men like me \u2013 get fat, get lonely. Perhaps play some internet poker. Maybe go on some bad internet dates. (Definitely blame the internet.) I like to think of myself as a unique flower, but the truth is, I was following this script perfectly. Until, all of the sudden, I wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
In March 2008, I got stupidly lucky and met a wonderful woman named Nola, who would become my girlfriend. On August 1, 2009 we moved in together. On August 23, 2009 we got married. The day after we got married we found out Nola was pregnant. (That\u2019s really the sequence of events, I swear.) It was a lot to process and the freaky stuff hadn\u2019t even started.<\/p>\n
The next month we went in for a sonogram and were greeted by a surly medical technician. I\u2019m generally one for emotional honesty, but when you\u2019re dealing with nervous prospective parents and their fears about the foreign, unseen creatures dominating their thoughts (and, in my wife\u2019s case, body) fake a smile, dammit. Surly Tech was silent for a long time, forcing us to interpret what a frown meant with respect to fetal activity. We asked if the baby was healthy. She nodded her head.<\/p>\n
And then: \u201cYou know, I\u2019m not supposed to tell you this stuff, but \u2013 there\u2019s two of them in there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sure enough, when she pointed out one little squiggly thing, there was unmistakably another little squiggly thing right near it, dancing around, taunting us.<\/p>\n
You never know how you\u2019re going to react in a life-changing moment. Apparently, I sweat profusely and stare. Nola (who just a few months earlier had responded to our car spinning out on the highway with a quiet \u201cOh well, here we go\u2026\u201d) broke into convulsive sobs. Then she stumbled, wailing, her hospital gown half-open, through the waiting room to the lavatory, where she promptly overflowed the toilet. Between my sweat, her tears, and the ladies\u2019 room, everything was soaked.<\/p>\n
So what the hell did this mean? For Nola, who was on the \u201cOne and Only One\u201d baby plan, it was a disaster, especially <\/em>if the two alien bodies inside her were to become human males. Nola had always wanted a girl.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know what two boys would do?\u201d she asked me, still crying, on the way out of the doctor\u2019s office. I had a million answers, but I wanted to see where she was going.<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cFight and masturbate. \u00a0And eat. That\u2019s all boys do. I\u2019m going to walk into their room in twelve years,\u201d she said,\u00a0 \u201cand they\u2019ll either be masturbating or punching each other in the face. Maybe both.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUh\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then, after I walk in on them masturbating and fighting, you know what they\u2019re going to do?\u201d<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n \u201cDemand a snack. So after my trauma, I\u2019ll have to go into the kitchen and make them grilled cheese sandwiches.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh my god\u2014I\u2019m so sure they\u2019re boys. They\u2019re probably jerking off and punching each other right now!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn your womb?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes. I\u2019m not having boys!\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s a lot of pressure to put on fetuses. But we couldn\u2019t know if these squiggles had chosen the right gender for another month.<\/p>\n In the meantime, my wife read online about something called \u201ctwin skin,\u201d the saggy flaps of stretched-out stomach most mothers who have twins retain post-delivery. A condition that apparently may lead to depression, voluntary surgery, and posting unnecessary pictures on the Internet. Nola took this as more evidence she\u2019d been cursed.<\/p>\n Two weeks after having amniocentesis, another test revealed the twins were monozygotic <\/em>\u2013 or, as we laymen inaccurately put it, identical. A couple of weeks after that, we got the news: Girls. Identical twin girls. Like in The Shining<\/em>.<\/p>\n I was still sweating. Nola began a rigorous twin skin prevention program.<\/p>\n Monozygotic pregnancies are the most fraught with danger, Octomom notwithstanding. So for the next six months, the hospital was our home away from home. Nola was put through a seemingly endless string of tests, all of which revealed that the babies were healthy and the parents were nervous.<\/p>\n On Friday March 26th<\/sup>, at 10:02 and 10:03 p.m., respectively, Una and Esme Kalish entered the world via C-section, an absolutely brutal \u201croutine\u201d eight-minute operation that left the operating room looking like the Battle for Stalingrad. I remember staring at the ground at all the bloody towels. Then I remember looking up and seeing Una \u2013 tiny, purple, and freaking out. A doctor asked if I wanted to take a picture of her. Before I could figure out the camera, Esme was born.<\/p>\n Our newborn daughters were beautiful and endlessly fascinating and we loved them completely \u2013 which is not to say the first three months of their lives wasn\u2019t a hellish blur. We didn\u2019t know what we were doing and we didn\u2019t sleep. The less we slept, the less we knew. It\u2019s amazing everyone survived. If God does exist, he\u2019s an asshole for the way he does this. My wife, exhausted and in a lot of post-surgical pain, would just have one child calmed down, when other one started screaming.\u00a0 Total dick move by God.<\/p>\n Nola took solace in the fact that, against all odds, she had no twin skin. That was sweet mercy for us both.<\/p>\n After those first three months, Una and Esme got bigger and stronger. Their sleeping was more predictable, and their crying less tenacious. It all got easier. And it helped that they started smiling. In my book, a child\u2019s smile is a pretty amazing reward for marginally acceptable new fathering.<\/p>\n
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